Kenya News

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 14 – There was panic at the Nairobi Central Police station when a powerful bomb was found onboard a matatu that was headed to Nakuru.

Police said the 14-seater matatu had stopped for normal security checks when officers discovered the device.

“We usually conduct security searches for all matatus plying the Nairobi-Nakuru highway, so when this particular one came in for the check, all passengers were ordered to alight. Before the search could begin, a man sneaked away and fled,” the division’s commander Richard Muguai said.

He added that “the bomb was discovered in a bag.”

“Our officers were going through all the luggage, and when they were inspecting one of the bags, they found the devise and demanded to know who the owner was, that is when the other passengers said that they heard him asking to be shown the washrooms,” he added.

The matatu was immediately detained and passengers screened further but no other dangerous item was found.

Mr Muguai said a manhunt had been launched for the owner of the luggage.

He said “officers will seek details of the passenger from the booking office of the matatu.”

Passengers in the matatu were later given alternative transport from the booking office.

Experts from the Bomb Disposal Unit were later called to the scene where they examined the device and described it as a “dangerous mortar propelled bomb.”

“This is a dangerous bomb, it can bring down a building and it therefore needs to be handled with care,” a police officer attached to the unit told Capital News before they loaded it in their vehicle.

He said they would examine it further at the CID headquarters and later destroy it.

On Tuesday, residents were evacuated from Maua town after an explosive devise was recovered behind a supermarket.

Bomb disposal unit officers later took it away and destroyed it at the CID headquarters.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 15 – Despite a cloudy morning in Nairobi, Kenyans have been able to get a rare glimpse of the annular solar eclipse.

The eclipse which saw the sun completely ringed by the moon began at about 8.20am and could be seen for about 10 minutes.

The spectacle kept disappearing under the clouds but those who were patient caught glimpses on and off.

An annular eclipse occurs when the Moon passes directly in front of the Sun but does not completely obscure it, thus leaving a ring – an annulus – of sunlight flaring around the lunar disk.

This eight to 11 minute eclipse is “the longest annular eclipse of the 3rd Millennium,” according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Only on December 23, 3043 will this record be beaten.

Apart from Friday\’s event, the only cover-up of the Sun this year will take place on July 11, when a total eclipse will cross the Pacific, visible notably from Easter Island, one of the world\’s remotest inhabited locations.
Total eclipses occur because of an unusual trick of celestial geometry.

The Sun is 400 times wider than the Moon, but it is also 400 times farther away. Because of the symmetry, the umbra, for those on the planetary surface, is exactly wide enough to cover the face of the Sun.

The orbits of the Earth and Moon are not completely circular, though. Tiny differences in distance explain why some eclipses are complete and others leave a thin ring of sunlight.

On December 21, 2010 – solstice day – there will be a total lunar eclipse, in which the full Moon will be covered completely by Earth\’s shadow for the first time in three years, according to Sky & Telescope.